I always thought wrestling would give me a way out and it has. It was there for me when my pops died and I was trying to support my moms and I, so we could live the best we could.

From where I'm from, New York City, there have been gang activity for years. My mom and I were never safe. We had to lock our doors and windows to make sure no one broke in and took whatever valuables we had.

This was something that I always looked forward to on Mondays and whenever my mom and I needed time to bond, and I always asked if she would be interested in watching wrestling with me, the answer was always "Yes". I was fascinated by the way the wrestlers were presented and I wasn't interested in the big strong guys like Hulk Hogan, Diesel, or Razor Ramon, I was more interested in Bret Hart, Stone Cold, Mick Foley, and Shawn Michaels because they were storytellers.

I knew I wanted to be a wrestler, but I had to start at the bottom and take part in sports like basketball and football, which brought a lot of athleticism from me. The biggest part I had to deal with was that, when I was faced with a ton of people seeing me differently.

I was called the "n-word", "homo" for no reason, probably because of my stupid bowl cut back then, and "spic" because I was a young Puerto Rican kid. My mom always told me that there were some obstacles that I was going to face throughout my life and she didn't say racism or bullying, but I knew exactly what she was talking about.

But before I tell the entire story about how I returned to NXT, let me take you back to the beginning, where it wasn't as pretty and happy as it seemed.